The memorizing of characters in books and their relationship to one another presents a difficulty to readers, especially when some characters appear early in the narrative and do not reappear for some considerable time, by which time the reader has forgotten their status, i.e. relationship to other characters, or their occupation or profession.
A further difficulty is presented in differentiating between similar names as would be the case with stories involving members of the same family bearing the same surnames. Fiction books do not have indexes as these would reveal characters before their appearance in the narrative, thereby defeating the object of the plot by revealing what is intended to remain covert.
To resolve these problems, some few readers are wont to list characters in their order as revealed in the story and progressively complete the list while reading the book. Most readers presented with these not un-common problems, resort to searching previous chapters for a reference to a forgotten character, a lengthy and not always successful operation which also detracts from the fluency of the narrative.
Another occasion in which a progressive reference list is required is for books in which questions are set for the reader. It is quite common for a book to call upon the reader to test his understanding of one section or chapter before proceeding to the next. Usually the answers are contained in the back of the book but when referring to answers it is difficult not to see the answers to questions yet to be encountered in the text and this can defeat the purpose of the questions.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these disadvantages and to provide the reader with a selective reference list which does not reveal information regarding parts of the book which have yet to be encountered by the reader.